50 years ago today: "May 2, 1964, saw the first major student demonstrations against the war in Vietnam."

"In New York City, 1000 students marched through Times Square to the United Nations to protest what was then called 'U.S. intervention' on behalf of the legitimate government of South Vietnam. More than 700 students and young people marched through San Francisco. In Boston, Madison, Wisconsin, Seattle, there were simultaneous smaller demonstrations. A start, but nowhere near enough. Nowhere near enough because very few students even knew about the war, or if they did, knew what it means, or what they could do about it. Now thousands know the nature of the war in Vietnam and its corollary deceit in the press and in our universities, and its concomitant at home. The May 2nd Movement calls that war and the resulting lies about it at home the products of an imperialistic system."

From "What is the May 2nd Movement?," a historical document preserved at The Sixties Project.

A Google news search on the term "the May 2nd Movement" turns up nothing, and I'm not finding anything more general about those protests. I'm particularly interested in the protests that took place here in Madison, and you might think Madison folk would be likely to commemorate 1960s protest. But a news search on "madison wisconsin vietnam" only brought up a couple of articles predicting the level of disorder that may occur on this, the weekend of the Mifflin Street Block Party, which, we're always told, originated in 1969 as a Vietnam War protest.

From protest to beer fest... and no one takes note of the half-century anniversary of the first major Vietnam Protest.